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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26937595">Starlight</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/thetransgirlwhoneverwas/pseuds/thetransgirlwhoneverwas'>thetransgirlwhoneverwas</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Fictober 2020 [10]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, Power Rangers, Power Rangers (Boom! Comics)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Gen</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 16:35:13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,428</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26937595</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/thetransgirlwhoneverwas/pseuds/thetransgirlwhoneverwas</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>The former Ranger Slayer has only just become herself again, but she still has a duty to fulfil, a mission to complete, a world to save. That, however, can wait until tomorrow - tonight she just wants to watch the stars with an old friend she hasn't seen in a very long time.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Fictober 2020 [10]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1952200</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Starlight</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>One day this place would be a ruin. The site of a great battle that the heroes lost. She knew. She was there. She was one of the heroes who lost. After that she was a villain, forced into evil against her will. There were gaps in her memory - days, weeks, months, she couldn’t remember - but of the times she did, she remembered everything she did. Everything she saw. Everyone she killed.</p><p>One day this place would be a ruin. But for now, outside of the old Command Centre, a Kimberly Ann Hart who did not belong in this time lay on the softest rock she had found and watched the starlight.</p><p>“Kimberly?” a voice approached her. Any other day she would have sensed someone coming, and a surprise like that would have made her jump to her feet, bow at the ready. But today was the first day in a long time, maybe the only day for the rest of her life, where she could afford not to be on her guard. Today and only today she could afford not to be the Ranger Slayer. Today and only today she could just be Kimberly Ann Hart.</p><p>“Hi Alpha,” she greeted the robot, not even having to turn her head. Nobody else had a voice that high pitched. How she had missed that voice. “Sorry about cutting your arm off.”</p><p>“You weren’t yourself Kimberly,” Alpha 5 reassured her. “We all know that. What are you doing out here?”</p><p>“The stars,” Kim responded. “I haven’t seen them like this in a long time. Besides, I had like fifteen milkshakes at the Juice Bar earlier and now I can’t move.”</p><p>Alpha giggled. He was the only robot Kim had ever met who giggled.</p><p>“Every night I see the stars,” Alpha said. “And every night I am amazed at the beauty I can see by just opening my eyes and looking up. I realise that if even the smallest action can inspire such joy, and our actions can spread that joy to so many, then no matter what happens, life is worth fighting for. Wouldn’t you agree?”</p><p>Kimberly remembered that Alpha had had a sense of humour. A rather basic, almost immature sense of humour that had nonetheless always made her laugh along. She had forgotten that he had a philosophical side to him as well. </p><p>“In my time you can’t really see the stars,” Kim explained, then immediately stopped herself. “Sorry. I know I’m not supposed to say anything about the future. Changing history and time exploding and all that.”</p><p>“I understand,” Alpha said. “It has been a long time since you have been able to talk to anyone as yourself. We all need to talk. Our connections with others is what makes us people.”</p><p>“Yeah,” Kim sighed. “I could do with someone to talk to to be honest. But, you know, timeline.”</p><p>Alpha didn’t respond. In fact, he fell entirely silent for a few seconds, prompting Kim to turn her head towards him. She was standing beside her, but his head was pointed to the floor. He didn’t have eyes, only a visor, but she could tell he had it closed, and though he didn’t have any kind of expression on his mechanical face, she could see him concentrating. Eventually, she heard a slightly worrying beep and Alpha looked up.</p><p>“In precisely thirty minutes, my memory of everything between now and that moment will be entirely erased,” he announced.</p><p>“What?” Kim asked, worried whether that would have any long term effects. “What’s wrong?”</p><p>“Nothing is wrong, Kimberly,” Alpha responded. “I set up a system that would wipe that time period from my memory banks.”</p><p>“...why?” Kim asked, incredulous.</p><p>“So that you may have someone to talk to,” Alpha said, and for the first time in a very long time Kim felt a warmth inside her. She got up - her stomach complained, but she ignored it - and hugged the friend she had missed so much, hugged him very tightly and didn’t let go for some time. The robot hugged her back.</p><p>“Thank you,” Kim said as she felt a tear fall down her cheek. It was far from the first tear she had felt today, but by far the most welcome. Eventually she laid back down on the rock and kept looking at the stars.</p><p>“The stars are mostly blocked out in my time,” she continued her explanation. “The world was taken over by...well, by a tyrant you haven’t met yet. So many battles were fought. There are so many satellites in the sky now, watching everything. So many ruins of so many ships that came to Earth and didn’t get out in time. The sky is full of lights at night, but you can’t see any stars. It’s all just...eyes and dust. Even the moon is barely there anymore. He likes it that way. Means that when he’s in his palace there, nobody can see him.”</p><p>“This tyrant,” Alpha asked. “He is the one who controlled you?”</p><p>“Yeah, that’s him,” Kim confirmed. The thought of him rose up in her mind. His face. The scarred face covered by that white and gold helmet that had become such a symbol of utter terror. That most hated visage that she had tried to put an arrow in. That she swore she would, one day. “He’s the one I worked for. The one I hurt so many people for.” The words came out numb, and though she didn’t even fight back the tears, there were none left, she had cried so much today for the people whose fight for freedom had been ended by one of her arrows.</p><p>“I don’t know who this tyrant is, or will be,” Alpha said. “But I know the Kimberly of today, and I know you too. And you are not a bad person, I promise. Whatever you may have been forced to do under his control, it isn’t your fault.”</p><p>“It doesn’t matter whose fault it was,” Kim responded. “People are dead and I did it. I don’t think I can come back from that.”</p><p>“The measure of a good person isn’t always in how much good or bad they’ve done,” Alpha said in his best attempt at a reassuringly wise tone. “Plenty of good people have done lots of bad, and plenty of bad people have done lots of good. What matters is that you try to do good going forward, and make up for whatever bad we may have done before.”</p><p>“I’ll make up for what I’ve done by killing him,” Kim promised, holding her hand up in front of her eyes and closing it into a fist. It meant nothing, Kim knew, but it made her feel better. A symbol of her promise, even if only to herself. “But I don’t know how much good I can do anymore. I’m too far gone.”</p><p>“I don’t believe that, Kimberly,” Alpha argued.</p><p>“What makes you so sure?” Kim asked.</p><p>“Because you still see the beauty in the stars,” Alpha answered. “And you have all night to see them.”</p><p>Kim laughed, and it was a genuine laugh. “Maybe you’re right,” she said. “I don’t know, but at least that question can wait until tomorrow. I can be Kim Hart, Ranger Slayer again tomorrow. Tonight I’ll just be Kim Hart, depressed stargazer.”</p><p>“Or perhaps you can be Kim Hart, my friend,” Alpha suggested.</p><p>“I think I’d like that,” Kim agreed. “Thanks, Alpha. I think I really needed this.”</p><p>“Anytime, Kimberly,” Alpha reassured her. He stood beside her and looked up.</p><p>He looked down again back at her some time later. “My memory will be erased in a few minutes,” he announced. “I will go inside and write myself a note so I am not worried about my missing time. Would you like to come with me, Kimberly?”</p><p>“Hmm?” Kim tore her eyes away from the night sky. “Oh, thanks, but I think I’ll stay out here a bit longer. Will you be okay?”</p><p>“I will be fine,” Alpha confirmed. “Feel free to come inside when you are ready. I will be there when you do.”</p><p>He turned and walked away, and it was only as he did that Kim realised that she had been holding his hand. She watched him walk towards the Command Centre, humming to himself as she remembered he always did. She watched him vanish from sight. Then she laid her head back against the rock and sighed a truly contented sigh as she watched the sky above her bathed in starlight.</p>
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